Bird Shit At Dusk

Shilo Niziolek

In Italy it is supposed to be good luck or a good sign when a bird shits on you.

When I was a child in the heat of Wyoming summers, we would set up a tent

in the side yard of our trailer and camp out under the fathomless western sky.

On the few nights my mom wasn’t working, trying to provide for three children

on her own, she would read to us, and on one such camp-yard night we laid in the grass, poking out from the jaws of the tent opening. A flock of birds flew

overhead and I turned my face of childhood wonder toward the clouds at which point one of the flock released a cannon ball of shit into my eye and on to my

Precious Moments bible. By then I was already questioning God about his existence.

Was he a dream that someone else had concocted? Was I a dream inside someone’s

mind, but if so, who was it that dreamt of me and how were they created? Now, at 31

I’ve nearly died more times than one, and in the dark of death I haven’t seen a single thing

I lay in the hammock near the bird feeders, and watch their shadows flit above my languid body. Every time one flies above, I think, please don’t shit on me. But when they

pass by without a blunder, I wonder if my luck has passed, if I never had any to begin with.

Maybe the birds won’t shit on me because god is just a word and the only holy thing left

in me is this desire to be blessed, anointed, baptized by bird shit falling from the sky, as if tiny feathery angels make the judgement calls about who lives and who will die.